Part 20 (1/2)
”I am Helena Belmont,” replied that young woman, serenely. ”Besides, I've got the will to be beautiful as well as the outside. Tiny hasn't. I have real audacity, and Ila only a make-believe. Caro shows her cards every time she rolls her eyes, and Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton never had a particle of dash. I'm going to be the belle. I'm going to turn the head of every man in San Francisco.”
”I'm afraid you will, Helena.”
”Afraid? You know you want me to. It wouldn't be half such fun if you weren't approving and applauding.”
”I don't want you to hurt anybody.”
”Hurt?” Helena opened her dark-blue pellucid eyes. ”The idea of bothering about a trifle like that. Men expect to get a scratch or two for the privilege of knowing us. It will be something for a man to remember for the rest of his life that I've 'hurt' him.”
”I am afraid you're a spoilt beauty already, Helena.”
”I've got the world at my feet. That's a lovely sensation. You can't think--it's a wonderful sensation.”
”I can imagine it.” Magdalena spoke without bitterness. Helena realised all her old ambitions but one, but she was too happy for envy.
”Describe Mr. Trennahan all over again.”
”I am such a bad hand at describing.”
”Well, never mind. Fancy your being engaged! Tell me everything. How did you feel the first moment you met him? When did you find yourself going?
It must be such a jolly sensation to be in love--for a week or so. Now!
Tell me all.”
”I'd rather not, Helena. I love you better than anyone besides, but I am not the kind that can talk--”
”Well, perhaps I couldn't talk about it, myself, but I think I could. I can't imagine not talking about anything. But of course you are the same old 'Lena. Will you let me read his letters?”
”Oh, no! no!”
”I'll show you every letter I get. I never could be so stingy.”
”I could not do that. I should feel as if I had lost something.”
”You were always so romantic. There never was any romance about me. Poor Mr. Trennahan will have something to do to live up to you. An alt.i.tude of eleven thousand feet is trying to most masculine const.i.tutions. But I suppose he likes the variety of it, after twenty years of society girls.
Well, let him rest.”
A door shut heavily in the hall below. Helena sprang to her feet.
”There's papa. I must go down. I never leave him a minute alone if I can help it. That's my only crumpled rose-leaf,--he is so pale and seems so depressed at times. You know how jolly and das.h.i.+ng he used to be. He hasn't a thing to worry him, and I can't think what is the matter. I beg him to tell me, but he says a man at his age can't expect to be well all the time. I can always amuse him, and I like to be with him all I can.
He's such a darling! He'd build me a house of gold if I asked for it.”
II
When Magdalena returned home she spread her new garments on the bed and regarded them with much satisfaction. Helena had expended no less thought on these than on her own, and none whatever on the meagreness of Don Roberto's check. There was a brown tweed with a dash of scarlet, a calling-frock of fawn-coloured camel's hair and silk, a dinner-gown of pale blue with bunches of scarlet poppies, and a miraculous coming-out gown of ivory gauze, the deepest shade that could be called white. And besides two charming hats there was a large box of presents: fans, silk stockings, gloves, handkerchiefs, and soft indescribable things for the house toilette. And her trousseau was also to come from Paris! Don Roberto, in his delight at having secured Trennahan, had informed his daughter that she should have a trousseau fit for a princess; or, on second thoughts, for a Yorba.
Magdalena opened a drawer and took out another of Helena's presents,--a jewelled dagger. While Colonel Belmont and his daughter were in Madrid there was a sale of a spendthrift n.o.ble's treasures. They had gone to see the famous collection, and among other things the dagger was shown them.
”It belonged to a lady of the great house of Yorba,” they were told.